Ever since it replaced the 1.6 FSI engine, the 1.2-liter TSI has been a mainstay of Volkswagen Group’s compact car segment in Europe. You can't even buy a cheap Golf without getting one of these four-banger turbos. On paper, not even the most powerful version is that impressive, producing only 105 horsepower. By comparison, Renault’s new 1.2-liter turbo from the TCe has just been rated at 130 horsepower in an application for the Megane facelift.
But as per usual with something made by a German company, the official numbers don’t tell the whole story. Autoforum.cz, a Czech auto website, was testing a production Skoda Rapid 1.2 TSI and believe the car was too fast compared for a regular sedan with an average 100 horsepower, something they also found last year on a pre-production car. And so they took it to the dyno and found some interesting numbers.
Instead of 105 PS and 175 Nm of torque, it put down 115 PS and 194 Nm of torque, 10 PS and 19 Nm more. The horsepower difference could be a simple error, while the torque is almost certainly because Skoda gave us its torque rating from as low in the rev range as possible, at 1550 rpm, while the engine actually makes more grunt higher up, at 3000rpm.
But to us, this dyno test explains why the Rapid 1.2 TSI 105 takes 10.3 seconds to reach 100 km/h and has a top speed of 195 km/h, quite fast when you compared it to rivals like the Chevy Aveo Sedan or Peugeot 301. A quick check reveals the 1.2 TSI 105 can be bought as the fourth least expensive model in about 15 combinations of engine and trim level for the Rapid, costing about €1,500 more than the basic 1.2 MPI 75. This makes it a very interesting performance bargain.
Instead of 105 PS and 175 Nm of torque, it put down 115 PS and 194 Nm of torque, 10 PS and 19 Nm more. The horsepower difference could be a simple error, while the torque is almost certainly because Skoda gave us its torque rating from as low in the rev range as possible, at 1550 rpm, while the engine actually makes more grunt higher up, at 3000rpm.
But to us, this dyno test explains why the Rapid 1.2 TSI 105 takes 10.3 seconds to reach 100 km/h and has a top speed of 195 km/h, quite fast when you compared it to rivals like the Chevy Aveo Sedan or Peugeot 301. A quick check reveals the 1.2 TSI 105 can be bought as the fourth least expensive model in about 15 combinations of engine and trim level for the Rapid, costing about €1,500 more than the basic 1.2 MPI 75. This makes it a very interesting performance bargain.